Dear Teacher,

Thank you, and I'm sorry. Thank you for all the time you put into ensuring that I was well. You went above and beyond the call of duty and gave all you had to your students. I'm sorry that I didn't appreciate all that you did for me, and I'm so sorry I took you for granted.

The high school we went to was rough around the edges, but home. There were so many students who would show up to school just so they could participate in your class. Most teachers just tried to make sure we could take tests, but not you. You kept us out of trouble, you gave us someone who we could trust, and you were an authority figure we actually respected and wanted to make proud.

I remember sitting in your classroom as we discussed the hardships in life, and, being teenagers, we had a lot. We were all stressed, and you gave us someone we could trust. Although the bags under your eyes had grown darker as the year had gone on, you still took time to ask how our lives had been going. Other students and I returned the favor by bringing you coffee and Mountain Dew when we knew that you'd been having a particularly rough time. When I spent long hours at school because I dreaded going home, you made sure I had something to preoccupy myself with. You didn't have to do that, but you did.

I'm sure that administrators thought that you were too close to us - that you needed to maintain a professional relationship, aka keep us at arms distance and only care about between 7:45 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. I can tell you they were wrong. It was because you cared so much that we stayed in school and stayed (mostly) out of trouble. You never missed an opportunity to teach us lessons that, while might not be directly related to the subject you taught, were important lessons we needed for life. You fought a lot of policies that the administration placed on us, but unlike many of the administrators, you knew how the students felt because you actually took the time to talk to us.

Having finished my first year of college, I realize that the days of having teachers who would reach out to me first were gone. If I wanted a professor to care about me, I'd have to make more of an effort than they did, otherwise I'd just be another face in a 300+ person lecture. When I missed a paper due to my dad being in an accident my professor told me that I'd need some sort of proof, or that I'd have to go through student services before he'd consider excusing it or accepting my late paper. There's much less of a personal relationship between students and their teachers in college.

I took your friendliness for granted more times than I would like to admit. You were one of the reasons I declared as an education major. I want to do for other students what you did for my classmates and I. I want to inspire others not only to become better students, but to become better people.

Thank you.